


Would You Lie With Me And Just Forget The World

by Sokaless



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Post FZZT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 22:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sokaless/pseuds/Sokaless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Jemma's close brush with death, Leo is shaken- badly. A late night encounter reveals that he's not the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Would You Lie With Me And Just Forget The World

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Agents of SHIELD fanfic, so I'm still kind of figuring out the characters. I know that everyone and their grandmother is writing post FZZT fics right now, but this has been stuck in my head since Wednesday, so I felt I had to write it. It's a lot longer than I thought it would be- the characters ran away from me a bit. The title is lyrics from Chasing Cars, which I listened to a lot while writing this.

_She's standing on the edge of the ramp, nothing behind her but the abyss of the sky. He struggles furiously to get the lab door open but it isn't budging and she's not backing down._

_“Jemma! No!” he screams, and she just looks at him sadly. He's yanking on the door now, but it's too late. With a single step backwards, she's blown away on the wind, tumbling down to the ocean, thousands of feet below._

_He has to save her, he has to, he needs to do something-_

He was on his feet and halfway out his bedroom door before he realized he was dreaming.

Leo slumped against the wall, closing his eyes. It wasn't really a dream, either. It was a memory, and that made it worse.

_Jemma is safe now,_ he reminded himself for the hundredth time in the last twelve hours, but somehow, that still hadn't registered in his brain. He had been so close to losing his best friend and he still felt wired from the experience.

Jemma, however, hadn't seemed bothered by her brush with death at all. All evening, she had smiled and joked around with Skye, brushing off Coulson's efforts to make her go get some rest. Leo didn't know if that was because of the adrenaline or not, but she had looked fine and cheerful ever since they had picked her and Ward up out of the ocean.

Leo didn't feel fine at all and he knew that he probably wouldn't get any more sleep that night. He straightened up and left his tiny room, shivering slightly from the chill in the air.

_It's like a bloody hotel that flies, you'd think that they could have equipped it with better heating,_ he thought bitterly.

There were really only two places for him to go- the lab, which, considering all that had happened in there, didn't sound appealing, or the living area. Maybe he could read a book.

Leo flicked on a lamp in the living area and almost had a heart attack when he saw someone already curled up on the couch.

“Hello, Fitz,” Jemma said, giving him a decidedly shaky smile.

Leo blinked, relaxing marginally. “What are you doing out here? It's four in the morning!”

“Oh, I couldn't sleep,” Jemma replied. “It seemed a bit pointless for me to stay in my room.”

Leo wondered why she hadn't gone down to the lab, but figured it was for the exact same reason he hadn't either. The bad memories were too fresh.

“Why are you up?” Jemma asked. “I didn't wake you coming out here, did I?”

_I was too worried about you to sleep,_ Leo thought but didn't say. “My head still hurts from when you brained me with the fire extinguisher,” he said instead. It wasn't a lie- he had a decent sized knot on the back of his head where the fire extinguisher made contact.

Jemma winced a little and motioned for him to come sit next to her. He did, but when she raised her hands to examine the bump on his head, he jumped away. “No, no, no, absolutely not. It's just a bruise, I'm fine, Jemma.”

“Fitz, you could have a concussion- just let me-”

“ _No,_ I'm _fine_ \- hands off- ow!”

“This wouldn't hurt if you would just keep _sti-_ ”

Both scientists fell at the sight of Agent May in the doorway. Beside Leo, Jemma swallowed nervously.

“Quiet,” May said, her voice deadly serious.

“Sorry,” Leo muttered, ducking his head. For a moment, he was worried he was going to get a lecture, but May just nodded and vanished again.

There was silence in the living area for a minute, as if it's occupants were too frightened to make a sound. Then Jemma started giggling quietly, covering her mouth with her hand to muffle the sound.

“What?” whispered Leo irritably.

“You should have seen your face,” Jemma said, trying to stifle her laughter and failing. “You looked absolutely _petrified._ ”

“It's not funny!” Leo protested, “she looked like she was ready to murder us in our sleep!”

Jemma stopped laughing.

It took Leo a moment to realize what he had said and when he did, he wanted to hit himself. Of course death would be a sensitive topic for her, after what had happened, even if he had meant it as a joke. He shifted closer to her.

“Sorry.”

“About what?” Jemma said brightly, though she had returned to the curled up position Leo had found her in. And Leo began to think that maybe he wasn't the only one who wasn't fine.

_This is a problem- fix it,_ the engineering part of his brain commanded him. But Jemma wasn't just another weapon that could be fixed by adding or removing an ounce of weight. People skills had never been Leo's forte and now he didn't know what to do.

“Fitz? Is something wrong?” Jemma asked, twisting her hands together in a way that Leo knew meant she was stressed about something.

Then he realized- while he wasn't an expert at dealing with people in general, he did know Jemma better than anyone else. Maybe this was a problem he could fix, if not permanently, then perhaps just temporarily.

“No, nothing's wrong. Stay here, I'll be right back,” he said and dashed back to his room, where he collected his laptop, a DVD and a set of headphones.

When Leo returned to the living area, Jemma was standing up and looking confused. “What are you doing?” she whispered. “You can't go running all over the place right now- next time you might wake _Coulson,_ and then we'd be in real trouble.”

Leo personally thought that May was a lot scarier than Coulson, but didn't say anything.

“If we're gonna be out here, we may as well have something to do,” he said, showing her the DVD.

Jemma's face brightened immediately. “Harry Potter! Brilliant!” She sat back down and Leo, feeling relieved, sat next to her, balancing his laptop on his knees and sliding the disk into the player.

Jemma seemed to relax a little as the movie began to play. Leo figured that she must have seen The Order of the Phoenix over twenty times, but she never grew tired of it.

“What kind of patronus do you think you would have?” she asked him quietly at one point.

“Probably a monkey,” Leo yawned, feeling the affects of such little sleep.

He saw Jemma shake her head out of the corner of his eye. “Of course,” she said, smiling. “I think I'd have a dolphin. Or maybe a bird of sorts.”

They sat there in silence for a while and Leo felt that he was finally starting to calm down. He no longer felt that crushing panic that had accompanied him throughout almost all of yesterday and Jemma seemed better as well.

_Harry Potter fixes everything,_ he thought, and at that moment, there was a cry of “ _Adava Kedavra!”_ on screen and Sirius Black began to fall back into a veiled doorway, his body spiralling into a backdrop of grey.

For a moment, Leo was back in the lab, watching Jemma fall backwards into thin air, thousands of feet above the ocean and the panic returned. Then he snapped back to the present and immediately turned to look at his friend, who had gone white as a sheet and completely still.

“That's enough of that,” Leo muttered, hurriedly shutting off the film, but Jemma didn't move.

Hesitantly, Leo shook his friend's shoulder. “Jemma?”

Jemma seemed to come out of a trance as her eyes focused back on him and she shifted uncomfortably on the couch. She was twisting her hands nervously again.

“Have you ever wondered what it's actually like?” she asked, eyes on the screen again. “To die, I mean.”

Leo shook his head wordlessly. He really did _not_ want to talk about this, but Jemma was already continuing.

“I almost got to find out, didn't I?” she said shakily, and maybe it was just a trick of the light, but Leo could have sworn there were tears in her eyes.

“You're still here,” he said quietly. “You're alive. That's what matters, isn't it?”

Jemma shook her head. “It's not that easy, Fitz.”

And he knew what she meant. It would probably be a long time before either of them got over the nightmare that was yesterday.

Leo wasn't good with words. So he reached out for Jemma's hand and squeezed lightly, trying to convey everything he couldn't say into that action. _I get it. I'm here for you. We'll be okay. And I'm so glad you're alive._

Jemma's hand tightened in his and he felt that maybe she understood.

They were silent again for a long time and Leo didn't let go of her hand. That simple touch kept him grounded and reminded him that she was still there. Jemma's grip eventually fell slack and he looked over to see her fast asleep, her expression calm for the first time that night. He smiled faintly to himself.

_She's safe now,_ Leo reminded himself again, and this time, he believed it.


End file.
